Joe Hawke.

Last week, Joe Hawke the leader of the Orakei Maori Committee Action Group which is struggling to regain the land at Bastion Point spoke at Victoria. While he was on campus he spoke to Lamorna Rogers and Gyles Beckford of Salient. Jane Wilcox took the photos.

Before Europeans came to settle in New Zealand the land on the Auckland isthmus, Tamaki Makaura, was owned by the Ngati Whatua tribe. However, consistent with their actions in other parts of the country the European authorities systematically gained the land by guile, deceit, trickery, empty promises and bribery. 1840, saw the first of the land, around 3,000 acres bought by the Government of the time for £200 in cash and goods. In little under 30 years all but 700 acres had been taken. During that time land had been taken for defence purposes but never returned when it was no longer needed and land was taken for a church and graveyard that were never established.

In 1869 a Native Land Court decision made the remaining land at Orakei (including Bastion Point) "utterly inalienable to any person in any manner whatsoever". Yet only 29 years later the Land Court ruled that the 13 Chiefs who had been nominated to hold the land for the Ngati Whatua were individual landowners and thus the remaining 700 acres was divided into 13 separate blocs with only 40 acres being left as inalienable. By 1940 most of that had been acquired by the government with only 12 acres being left in tribal hands. The government seized 10 acres of that for housing that was never built and finally the remaining Maori families were resettled in State Houses and their own homes bulldozed flat. The only remnant of Ngati Whatua land left in their own hands that had not been touched by the Government was a ¼acre graveyard.

The Present Struggle

As a consequence the young people soon became more active in such bodies as the Maori District Councils. This has taken a long time to happen, however —; "27 years for that small spark to catch on and blossom into the formidable force which it is today". The task and responsibility of the young people has grown as the years have gone on. They have shown a willingness to become involved with the activities of the marae and that they are playing a leading role in the reappraisal of the situation of the Maori in New Zealand Society. It is in this context that Joe Hawke sees the significance of the Bastion Point land struggle for the Maori people today, especially the young Maoris, "Rastion Point has had an impact upon a lot of Maoris. Figuratively speaking they can apply it to their own situation and this is giving them an example of actually struggling for something..... for the preservation of their land".

One of the barriers to such an awareness in earlier years was the shift of the Maori to the city — a European stronghold totally foreign to Maori culture and values: "with the many temptations (of the city) there has resulted an assimilation programme fostered by many Europeans to domesticate the savages, and we have become used to the 7 - 5 job hours .... we have become domesticated and tamed like chucks". Nationally, the turning point came with the Maori Land March in 1975. The March was perhaps the culmination fo the growing awareness that was present among the Maori people, especially the Maori youth: "I think that the Maori Land March made a lot of Maori people aware, even European people aware of the situation regarding Maori Land. It had a strong impact of social awareness and of the message it portrayed. Everywhere we went on the March, out of the 25 maraes that we stayed at, it was like hearing the same record over and over again — the problems of land, culture and our heritage".

While the Land March may have achieved much, there have also been problems that have been deep seated within the Maoris themselves. For a long time the young people were not encouraged by the elders of the tribes in many areas to take an active role in their own affairs. The lack of direction and incentive on the part of the Maori elders may have accounted for the willingness with which many of the young took up the cause of the Land March. — "one of the terrible things that is happening these days is that the young people are not allowed to speak on the maraes. Now its fair enough if the elders are playing their game, if they are playing the right role.

Above we see the proposals of the Bastion Point protestors for the use of the land while at right we see the Government's proposals for carving up the land.

Joe Hawke.

[unclear: agree] that the young people should sit behind [unclear: eir] old people but again if the elders are not [unclear: ing] their job of creating awareness on the [unclear: arae] and being in day to day contact with [unclear: e] young people they can't expect just to [unclear: in] the limelight".

A further result of the Land March and [unclear: istion] Point is that the Maori people have [unclear: come] politically active. The feeling of [unclear: 'termination] has been strengthened and [unclear: ere] is a new positive attitude amongst the [unclear: ople] to regain their land and to reassert their [unclear: vn] culture and heritage."Let's face it, we [unclear: e] Ngati Whatua) can't lose because we have [unclear: eady] lost everything so that we will win in [unclear: e] end, and anything that we gain must be [unclear: improvement"].

[unclear: Joe] Hawke sees the struggle at Bastion [unclear: int] and the recent events at Raglan as being direct results of the Land March. At Raglan Maori land had been seized during the war for use as an aerodrome, and was subsequently used as part of the local golf course. However, very recently it was announced that because it was not used for the original purpose for which it was seized that it would be returned to the true owners.

As for Bastion Point Joe Hawke knows that the Ngati Whatua will be ultimately [unclear: successful.] He point to the history of the tribe as an indication of their spirit: "We were not conquered by muskets or gunpowder. We were conquered by promises, treaties, promised legislation, protective legislation. This is a different warfare".

The sides to this "battle" have been drawn quite clearly. On the one hand is the Ngati Whatua and a large number of groups supporting the return of Bastion Point to the tribe, and on the other is the Government, attempting to use the land to provide high-class accommodation (with fine views of the harbour etc.)

The Ngati Whatua took the initiative in the "battle" and moved into the site of the proposed subdivision. This occurred after the Government had ignored the repeated requests from the Ngati Whatua for a return of the land: "basically what it boils down to is the continual annoyance of our people in regard to these basic issues and this has forced them to take direct action. The government has shown a complete arrogance and non-committal attitude to action any solution to the Maori problem in Orakei and to the people of the Ngati Whatua of Tamaki Makaura..... On Bastion Point our campaign has been one of insisting that the Minister of Maori Affairs, the Minister of Lands, and the Prime Minister be informed of the urgent need for these grievances to be understood without evading the issues .... we will continue to occupy the land until the Government is prepared to face the issues fair and square ..."

Divide and Rule

For its part the Government has not been slow in attempting to divide the Maoris on this issue. Earlier in the year the Minister of Lands, Venn Young, made an offer of 13 acres to the elders of the tribe. Some were willing to accept it until a closer examination was made of the deal and the conditions that were attached. One of the terms was that the Ngati Whatua people should drop all future claims to any land. — "this is committing future generations to a situation where they would have no redress and I don't think that we can take that responsibility upon ourselves". The offer has just been refused and it would seem that the divisions that were apparent amongst certain sections of the tribe are being closed. Apart from the paltry 13 acres which has been offered to the tribe there has been no further offer by the government.

There were moves by a law lecturer from Auckland University to raise the matter in the courts. However, Justice Perry threw out the case without considering one substantive bit of law,

Joe Hawke spent much time emphasising the need for the matter to be brought out into the courts where it can be properly aired in public. The Minister of Maori Affairs has the right to put the matter into the courts under s.68 of the Maori Affairs Amendment Act but has declined to do so. "By restricting the Maori people from the courts it is clearly shown as another stalling tactic by the government — they don't want widespread publicity on the alienation of Maori Land". If this is the case then the Government may have given the Ngati Whatua the opportunity that was denied to them before, since the Minister of Lands has applied for an injunction in order to evict the people staying at Bastion Point — Joe Hawke is one of those named in the writ.

There is no doubt that the fight for the return of the Bastion Point tribal lands will continue perhaps even despite an unfavourable court ruling. It is apparent that the Maori people will not allow themselves to be fobbed off with anything less than they have asked for. With the experience of the Maori Land March behind them they are well prepared to resist the the government. Their attitude is best summed up by a story Joe Hawke told of his childhood.

"When I was eight years old, I remember my grandmother in the garden and she sat down and called me over. She put a lump of dirt in one hand and 6 pennies in the other and asked me 'If I give you that money and the dirt in the other hand which will last the longest?' I wondered for a while because I knew there was a moral there, and she was a woman very close to the land. My feelings come out of her influence, and I answered "The dirt will last the longest. Because I could take pennies to the shop and spend them but I would always have the dirt".